Blonde on a Road Trip

While yesterday was a lovely mix of exploration and chill, I still felt like I could do with more rest, so my plan for the day was to get myself to the much talked about Manly and have a slow perusal of the town.

I was a bit worried that I’d been so sick on this trip, so wondered about enrolling in Medicare. Luckily there was an office in Chatswood where I could get the forms I needed. So I got the Tube to Chatswood and walked to the Services Australia office. On my way there, I spotted the 144 bus, which goes straight to Manly – very handy!!!

Sadly, the process of enrolling in Medicare would not be happening today as they wanted documents proving my residency in the UK, which I simply couldn’t provide. So, after a little huff and puff of frustration, I made my way to the 144 bus stop.

Expecting very little from the weather, I was then very pleasantly surprised when the sun decided to join me on my trip to Manly, which is only 15km north of the Opera House, but not accessible by train. However, I had come very unprepared for a beach session and Manly has an amazing beach. So, first things first, I went and got myself a cinnamon bun and some blueberries from the supermarket Coles, and then I grabbed a coffee from a cute little place recommended by some women in the bikini shop Baku, where I splurged on a gorgeous new turquoise number.

Now armed with a coffee and breakfast, I took myself off to the beach.

I thought it would be nice and peaceful and that I’d just be able to watch the surfers and nibble away in peace at my cinnamon bun.

Alas! Seagulls!

I ended up bargaining with them a little. I gave them a few bits of shrapnel and fragments of blueberry if they swore not to tell their friends, which they surprisingly seemed to make good on…

As you can imagine, very tough day chilling in the sun with nowhere to be and nothing to do. I think my body is starting to understand the concept and is thanking me for it as I’m feeling much better.

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Time flies when you’re doing nothing… not… but eventually it was time for Michael to clock off work too, so he drove over and joined me after work. It’s only a 30-minute drive for him, so he doesn’t know why he doesn’t do it more often and I can’t answer that for him, but the parking here is actually expensive and once you get into a routine that doesn’t involve the beach, it’s harder to involve the beach. But that didn’t stop us enjoying some time watching the waves and surf school doing horrible exercise drills.

As the clock got dangerously close to 6pm, we hurtled towards a brewery on the wharf side of Manly where the ferries come in. Felons Brewing Co. is right on the water here, so that was the winner for us!

Our bellies rumbled for food, so we began our journey to find something to eat. After our miserable attempt at pizza on night one in WA, we reckoned we’d just about come round to the idea of a decent pizza, and Michael’s friend had recommended a place called Pocket Pizza, so off we went! Hungry as we were, we perhaps reeked of desperation and the maitre d’ informed us that there were no free tables for now and that we could leave our number and she’d let us know if one became available in half an hour or so. So we resigned ourselves to waiting seeing as the pizza looked and smelt so good here.

Just up on the other side of road was a nice little curry place called Sketch that also served beer and coffee and wasn’t too sketchy at all. I think the word for it would be “edgy” and the curry and trimmings did look incredible. However, we were only sat there with a beer biding our time before our eagerly awaited text message came through from Pocket Pizza.

But much like any eagerly awaited text message, it never came, so after we’d finished our drinks and enough time had elapsed, we wandered over to Pocket Pizza again to enquire about the table we’d be semi-promised. Well, it still wasn’t available… so we began walking away with our tails between our legs… until 150m up the road Michael’s phone began ringing, bringing news that a table had been secured for us. Yay! Pizza is back on the menu!

We quickly ordered and it wasn’t long before our drinks appeared, followed shortly by our delicious pizzas.

We could only manage half of each of our pizzas, so took a box home for a later day.

After dinner, we walked back to the car park, paid the extortionate car parking fees and made our way back to Lindfield where we had some chocolate and watched TV before bed.